A short guide to Moscow architecture by A. Lavrin

The Stone Pages

ON SEVEN HILLS

moscow, like ancient rome, stands on

seven hills. If you look closely at the city's outline, you can see the hills. The principal is the Borovitsky, the hill on which the Kremlin stands. The second hill is called Tverskoy, hence the name of the city's main street running across it. The third too gave its name — Sretensky — to a street, one of the city's oldest. Above the Yauza River there rise the Tagansky and Lefortovsky hills. In the west above the Moskva River stands a group of three hills, called Tryokhgorka. And in the southwest the Vorobiyovy Hills are crowned by the buildings of Moscow University.

Back in the 13th century Moscow was surrounded by settlements and churches and right outside its eastern walls there was a market with shops and merchants' dwellings, called posad. This trading quar­ter gave rise to what is now known as Kitay-Gorod. Later people began to settle on the opposite bank of the Moskva River and gave it the name Zamoskvorechye, which means an area beyond the river.

In the same century fortified monaster­ies and convents began to appear on the approaches to Moscow, the Danilov, Andronikov, Simonov, Novo-Spassky, Novodevichy and Donskoy. Several cen­turies later monasteries formed a necklace of miniature towns around Moscow and eventually were incorporated into it.

MOSCOW AS RUSSIA'S CENTER

Sprawling over seven hills, with a belt of fields around it, the picturesque city delighted many foreign travelers. An Ital­ian historian, Paulus Jovius, wrote: "Given its advantageous location, Moscow has the priority right to be the capital. Its wise founder built it in the very middle of a densely populated country. It is protected by rivers and a fortress. In the opinion of many, the city will never lose its lead."

Moscow's political role increased when the clever and energetic Prince Yuri Danilovich came to power and began to collect Russian lands around this center. The mission was continued by Yuri's brother, Ivan Kalita. Prince Dmitry Don­skoy secured the lead of Moscow in the struggle of the Russian lands against the Golden Horde invaders when he crushed the enemy troops in the Battle of Kulikovo. In the late 15th century the great grandson of Dmitry Donskoy, Great Prince Ivan III, completed the unification of Russian lands around Moscow and cre­ated a single Russian state.

The city grew along with the new Moscow principality. Settlements spread­ing around Kitay-Gorod were quick to populate and soon formed a town of con­siderable size that was called Zemlyanoy, or earthen, because it was surrounded by an earthen wall.

Moscow's early architecture was sim­ple but expressive, showing its close affinity with folk architecture. It made extensive use of such dynamic forms as keel-shaped portals, tiers of vaulted roof­ing and helmet- or onion-like domes. The buildings seemed to be shooting upward, an effect meant to express the triumph of a victorious nation.

WHITE-STONE MOSCOW

In 1472 Ivan III invited to Moscow several first-class foreign architects with the Italian Aristotle Fioravanti in the lead. In

the decade ending in 1495 the Italian supervised the construction of the Krem­lin's new fortress walls and towers right where they are today. The same years saw the erection of the Granovitaya (Faceted) Chamber, the Cathedral of the Annuncia­tion and the Archangel Cathedral.

The city's main structures, such as

fortress walls, towers, bridges, buildings in

the royal courtyard, churches and cathe­drals, were made of brick and white stone, then decorated with white-stone and ceramic details and covered with roofs of gilded sheet iron or glazed tiles. These sol­id and majestic structures were meant to symbolize the city's might. Eventually they created Moscow's unique architec­tural image of a city of white stone.

But the larger part of the city was pre­dominantly occupied by private houses and remained wooden. The first citizen to put up a stone building in his court­yard was Metropolitan Iona. It hap­pened in the 15th century. For several centuries more, until the great fire of 1812, however, the city's rare buildings of stone were lost amidst the boyars' chambers, merchants' houses and arti­sans' and peasants' huts, each type of wooden architecture boasting a fanciful design of its own.

WIND FROM THE WEST

the Great, when genuinely Russian architecture began to give way to for­eign trends. The famous architect Bar-tolomeo Rastrelli erected several build­ings in European style. As western influ­ence increased, particularly during the reign of Alexander I in the early 19th century, Moscow was swept with a pas­sion for Empire style. The fire that raged in the city for several days during Napoleon's invasion in 1S12, destroyed 7,632 out of the 9,150 buildings, and the city's central area was completely gone. The disaster, however, prompted what became a real housing boom.

Large-scale stone construction was launched during the reign of Catherine

Standard projects had to be used to restore Moscow quickly and preserve the city's architectural uniformity. Among a few that survive to this day are the Pro-viantskiye Sklady, or Provision Ware­houses, built on Krymskaya Square in 1832 through 1835. Standard projects also went into the construction of dwelling houses in Empire style, many of which have remained in good condi­tion to this day.

Owing to the high rates of restoration after the fire of 1812 and the great num­ber of fine stone houses, the city's layout and the network of its streets remained as they were 100 years earlier.

Radial roads, which for centuries had never changed their direction, became Moscow's main streets, running from the center to the outskirts. These gradually formed the radial-circular system Moscow is known for. Although of chaotic origin, the system remains the backbone of the city's layout and is called "Moscow's plan" in the world history of town planning.

NEW TIMES

As the years passed, the city's bound-aries expanded. New dwelling districts and industrial enterprises were built in the outskirts.

At the end of the 19th century, compa­ny offices, banks, shops and restaurants mushroomed-in the center of Moscow, gradually changing the architectural look of the Moscow of the nobility. Several large public buildings appeared, including the City Hall, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Conservatory and the Upper Trading Arcade (GUM Department Store).

Two main trends emerged in architec­ture in the late 19th century. The first sought to revive Russian style, which meant, in fact, to adapt the details of Byzantine style and the style of Pskov and

Novgorod to embellish the fronts of large stores, railway terminals, hotels and man­sions. This trend is particularly evident in the building of the Kazansky Railroad Terminal, designed by Alexey Shchusev, and the Historical Museum, designed by Vladimir Shervud.

The second trend focused on mastering Art Moderne style and Constructivism. Its most outstanding examples are the former department store Muir and Mer-rilees, currently the Central Department Store (TsUM), designed by Roman Klein, and Metropol Hotel, by William Walcott.

The 1920s and 30s gave Moscow sever­al remarkable constructivist buildings, including the Rusakov Palace of Culture by Konstantin Melnikov and the unique building of the Lenin Mausoleum by Shchusev.

A COMBINATION OF CITIES

MOSCOW, IN FACT, IS NOT ONE CITY BUT A

combination of several, each with a character and style of its own. It has an amazing ability to assimilate any archi­tectural style or trend, which makes Moscow's eclecticism so fascinating. Here you can find the luxuriant Baroque of the 18th century well-matched with audacious Constructivism, or see the standard Empire style of the 19th centu­ry quite at ease alongside exquisite Art Moderne, or the innovations of contem­porary Russian architects standing in full harmony with Stalin's neo-Empire skyscrapers.

Moscow today is an enormous city,
whose infrastructure is traditional for a
megalopolis, with first-rate hotels, restau-
rants, theatres, shops and gigantic trans-
port arteries. But in spirit it remains its
old self, open, hospitable and festive, and,
consequently, has the right, as ever, to be
called the heart of Russia.

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